Articles Posted in NC

Congratulations to attorney Patrick J. Loughren of Pennsylvania for his victory in Tristani v. Richman, a medicaid subrogation case. I don’t have a lot of time today to dig through this case, which is 50 pages long and denser than a fruitcake, but this is, in my opinion, and “extension” on Ahlborn. also, it addresses…

If you are a lawyer who sometimes helps your clients with settlements by recommending a structured settlement (annuity) the shake up of AIG should be a topic of conversation.  I emailed one of my friends, Bryan Milner, who is a structured settlement broker and gave him a Q & A on questions I anticipate my…

I try to keep this Blog fairly apolitical, but during an election season that can be difficult. My feelings about so-called “tort reform” are pretty clear: it is generally a terrible idea that only hurts the truly innocent- people who have been hurt by someone else’s negligence. That said, where do Obama and McCain stand…

Well, the world’s ugliest law blog has hit 30,000 unique visitors after a little less than 2 years of operations. Not bad for a blog concentrating on one of the more boring topics in the world: liens and subrogation. Here are the stats as of today: Maybe I’ll set my summer intern loose on trying…

I received a good question today and thought I would share my thoughts on the issue. The question concerns Medicaid and “med pay”. In NC, Medicaid gets 100% of med pay (first party) insurance proceeds. The problem is that quite often physicians and chiropractors often receive the med pay before the lawyer is involved. Or,…

We’ve had a great decision published by our North Carolina Court of Appeals which finally clarifies the issue of prejudgment interest on Underinsured and Uninsured Motorist Arbitrations in North Carolina. The gist of the problem was that the while the Uniform Arbitration Act provides that arbitration Awards can be reduced to judgments and filed as…

Looks like Allstate is willing to pay $2.4 Million dollars to hide their claims practices: Allstate won’t produce records despite $25,000-a-day fineBy JOE LAMBEThe Kansas City Star Allstate Insurance Co. lawyers made this clear Tuesday to a Jackson County judge: They will not produce key records for public view no matter how much he fines…

N.C. COURT OF APPEALS Where the right to intrastate travel is a “right of function,” the right to enter public parks is not encompassed by either the fundamental right of travel or the right to intrastate travel. We affirm the trial court order upholding the defendant-town’s ordinance, which prohibits registered sex offenders from knowingly entering…

Because I run a business that is, in part, dependent on advertising, I check out Google searches to see where my firm “places” in the Google rankings. While looking through some of the “top hits” I found a local Raleigh firm “recommended” by a Blogger. Sure, why not? Except that this “Blogger” is from another…